---
name: "Alan Ball"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/alan-ball"
fi1m_id: "alan-ball"
imdb_id: "nm0050332"
tmdb_id: 2152
wikidata_id: "Q1752144"
roles: ["Writer","Producer","Director"]
born: "13 May 1957"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 4
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-23T13:38:43.524039+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Alan Ball

## Identity

Alan Ball

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/alan-ball
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** alan-ball
- **IMDb ID:** nm0050332
- **TMDB ID:** 2152
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1752144
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ball_(screenwriter), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1752144, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0050332/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2152

Writer and producer. Born 13 May 1957 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Producer, Director
- **Born:** 13 May 1957, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- **Active:** 1999–2013
- **Also known as:** Alan E. Ball
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 4: 2 directing, 1 writing, 1 producing
- **Frequently works with:** [Adam Davidson](https://film.one/person/adam-davidson.md), [Dan Attias](https://film.one/person/dan-attias.md), [Daniel Minahan](https://film.one/person/daniel-minahan.md), [Jeremy Podeswa](https://film.one/person/jeremy-podeswa.md), [Michael Cuesta](https://film.one/person/michael-cuesta.md), [Nancy Oliver](https://film.one/person/nancy-oliver.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won)
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1990s 76 (1), 2000s 78 (2), 2010s 72 (1)
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ball_(screenwriter), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1752144, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0050332/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2152

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*Six Feet Under*](https://film.one/tv/six-feet-under.md) (86)
- **Disney+:** [*True Blood*](https://film.one/tv/true-blood.md) (71)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Alan Ball

> Alan Ball writes families who know what is wrong with them and still cannot behave better. We rate him most highly when the comedy stays close to grief; his solemn explanations are less persuasive.

In *American Beauty* (1999), Annette Bening gives Carolyn's lines a tightness that makes the marital comedy uncomfortable. We laughed at Spacey's self-satisfaction, then felt chastened by how punishing she made their relationship seem. Alan Ball is good at making family unhappiness funny without letting us forget the pain. His breakthrough screenplay, directed by Sam Mendes, also shows how readily he can mistake a familiar complaint for a discovery. Bening supplies sympathy that his jokes have not always earned.

Conrad Hall's controlled images and Naomi Shohan's stifling domestic interiors make the dissatisfaction clear before the dialogue explains it. Editors Christopher Greenbury and Tariq Anwar give the performances time without making a fuss of each change from humour to unhappiness. Thomas Newman's music helps the gentler feelings come through. These collaborators make the screenplay persuasive for long stretches, though they cannot make every solemn observation worth hearing.

Ball found a better setting for that mixture of comedy and unhappiness in the television series he created, *Six Feet Under* (2001). The Fishers run a funeral business, so even ordinary domestic complaints sit beside grief. With fellow writers Kate Robin, Craig Wright and Nancy Oliver, he makes comedy from people who understand their problems and remain bad at handling them. Their suffering is taken seriously without making the family any less exasperating. The long examinations of unhappiness can wear us down, but this is the work we recommend most readily.

With *True Blood* (2008), Ball took the premise of Charlaine Harris's novels to the Louisiana town of Bon Temps and let the comedy get filthier. Vampires able to survive on bottled synthetic blood give him room for lurid, quick-footed entertainment. We recommend the first three seasons, before the plotting begins to coast. He was showrunner for the first five, so the decline cannot simply be assigned to his departure. Anna Paquin holds it together after the plotting stops making much effort.

His later film *Uncle Frank* (2020), which he wrote and directed, returns to family secrets. Our starting point would still be *Six Feet Under*. Allow for the occasional evening when the Fishers exhaust your patience.

## Biography

Alan Ball is an American screenwriter, director and producer for film and television. He is best known for writing the screenplay for *American Beauty* (1999), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and for creating the HBO series *Six Feet Under* (2001–2005), on which he also served as writer, director and executive producer.

Ball began his career as a playwright before writing for the sitcoms *Grace Under Fire* and *Cybill*. He later created and served as showrunner for the HBO series *True Blood* (2008–2014) for its first five seasons. His other directing and writing credits include the films *Towelhead* (2007) and *Uncle Frank* (2020). He has received an Emmy Award and multiple Writers Guild, Directors Guild and Producers Guild awards.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (4)

### Directed (2)

- *True Blood* (2008), Fi1m 71, Director, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/true-blood.md)
- *Six Feet Under* (2001), Fi1m 86, Executive Producer, Director, Writer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/six-feet-under.md)

### Wrote (1) — the average rests on these

- *American Beauty* (1999), Fi1m 76, Co-Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/american-beauty.md)

### Produced (1)

- *Banshee* (2013), Fi1m 72, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/banshee.md)

## Complete filmography (16)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Uncle Frank* (2020), Writer, Producer, Director
- *Here and Now* (2018), series, Director, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator
- *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks* (2017), Executive Producer
- *5 Women Wearing the Same Dress* (2015), Writer
- *Banshee* (2013), series, Executive Producer — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/tv/banshee.md)
- *The American Tetralogy* (2012), Producer
- *Towelhead* (2008), Director, Producer, Screenplay
- *True Blood* (2008), series, Director, Executive Producer, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 71, [page](https://film.one/tv/true-blood.md)
- *Six Feet Under* (2001), series, Writer, Director, Executive Producer, Creator — Fi1m 86, [page](https://film.one/tv/six-feet-under.md)
- *Oh, Grow Up* (1999), series, Writer, Producer, Creator
- *American Beauty* (1999), Writer, Co-Producer — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/american-beauty.md)
- *Cybill* (1995), series, Director, Writer
- *Grace Under Fire* (1993), series, Director, Writer
- *A Drop of True Blood*, series, Creator
- *All Signs of Death*, Director, Writer
- *Virtuoso*, Director, Writer

## Gallery

- ![Alan Ball](https://film.one/media/person/61367/gallery-3e8ab7954e14.jpg) Alan Ball — BALL_Allan-24x30-2008.jpg: Studio Harcourt
derivative work: Materialscientist (talk), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/BALL_Allan-24x30-2008b.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Director Alan Ball - "True Blood" 25th Annual Paley Television Festival - ArcLight Cinemas, Los Angeles. (2009)](https://film.one/media/person/61367/gallery-15600b767cff.jpg) Director Alan Ball - "True Blood" 25th Annual Paley Television Festival - ArcLight Cinemas, Los Angeles. (2009) — Kristin Dos Santos, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Alan_Ball.jpg/1280px-Alan_Ball.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Alan Ball - "True Blood" Season Two Premiere Party - Paramount Theater, Paramount Studios, Hollywood, California.](https://film.one/media/person/61367/gallery-f5fc2de86b08.jpg) Alan Ball - "True Blood" Season Two Premiere Party - Paramount Theater, Paramount Studios, Hollywood, California. — Kristin Dos Santos, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Alan_Ball_%282009%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Alan Ball at the 2012 Comic-Con in San Diego.](https://film.one/media/person/61367/gallery-6527eafff881.jpg) Alan Ball at the 2012 Comic-Con in San Diego. — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Alan_Ball_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg/1280px-Alan_Ball_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Anna Paquin & Alan Ball speaking at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere](https://film.one/media/person/61367/gallery-2ecca537e5db.jpg) Anna Paquin & Alan Ball speaking at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere — Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Anna_Paquin_%26_Alan_Ball_%287605747414%29.jpg/1280px-Anna_Paquin_%26_Alan_Ball_%287605747414%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Nathan Barr and Alan Ball working on True Blood season 2 (2009)](https://film.one/media/person/61367/gallery-3090688322bb.jpg) Nathan Barr and Alan Ball working on True Blood season 2 (2009) — Kebrandt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Nathan_Barr_and_Alan_Ball_working_on_True_Blood_season_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 1 won

- 2000: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (won), for *American Beauty*

### Primetime Emmy Awards — 1 won

- 2002: Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (won), for *Six Feet Under*

### Other awards — 1 won

- GLAAD Stephen F. Kolzak Award 2002: GLAAD Stephen F. Kolzak Award (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/alan-ball